Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/317

Rh 'Yes, he spends most of his time. He's driven over there every day—he remains there for hours. He keeps it for that.'

'I see—it's still the museum.'

'It's still the temple!' Lavinia replied, with positive austerity.

'Then why did he move?'

'Because, you see, there'—she faltered again—'I could come to him. And he wants me,' she said, with admirable simplicity.

Little by little I took it in. 'After the death of the parents, even, you never went?'

'Never.'

'So you haven't seen anything?'

'Anything of hers? Nothing.'

I understood, oh perfectly; but I won't deny that I was disappointed: I had hoped for an account of his wonders, and I immediately felt that it wouldn't be for me to take a step that she had declined. When, a short time later, I saw them together in Kensington Square—there were certain hours of the day that she regularly spent with him—I observed that everything about him was new, handsome, and simple. They were, in their strange, final union—if union it could be called—very natural and very touching; but he was visibly stricken—he had his ailment in his eyes. She moved about him like a sister of charity—at all events like a sister. He was neither robust nor rosy now, nor was his attention visibly very present, and I privately and fancifully asked myself where it wandered and waited. But poor Marmaduke was a gentleman to the end—he wasted away with an excellent manner. He died twelve days ago; the will was opened; and last week, having meanwhile heard from her of its contents, I saw Lavinia. He leaves her everything that he himself had inherited. But she spoke of it all in a way that caused me to say in surprise: 'You haven't yet been to the house?'